The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions says they are increasing their efforts to crack down on fraudulent unemployment benefit claims. The announcement comes after the department received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to audit 50 claimants a week for potential fraud, as well as hook up to a national online system that tracks previous claimants who have returned to work. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports:

With the growth in the number of claims paid, the amount of overpayments has risen in the past five years, up from $6 million in 2006 to $27 million in 2010. That is according to federal figures that track the overpayments that states can reasonably be expected to discover and try to recover. At the same time, overall claims paid have risen from about $99 million in 2006 to $310 million in 2010.

The department uses figures that are compiled through the federal Department of Labor’s Benefit Accuracy Measurement Program, which audits 480 random cases in New Mexico a year to check the accuracy of benefit decisions.

The percent of the overpayments that are fraudulent has remained about the same, [Workforce Solutions Department Secretary] Bussey said, but the department wants to look anew at what it could do to reduce that number.

It also wants to work more at reaching out to other state and federal agencies on cases in which prosecution might be needed.

Intentional fraud is less common than simple misunderstandings or mistakes on the part of either the claimant or the government. Bussey told the New Mexican that the average formerly unemployed person will continue to withdraw unemployment benefits four to five weeks after they have obtained a new job.

The department hasn’t prosecuted anyone for unemployment benefit fraud in five years. Currently, the department will request that fraudulent claimants return the money and penalize them by denying them benefits for a certain amount of time. It will also use measures such as intercepting tax returns and garnishing wages to recoup the money.

The nationwide database, called the National Directory of New Hires, was established by the federal welfare reform law in 1996 as a way to improve child support payment enforcement, but can also be used by states to verify that they are making accurate unemployment payments.

-The top 1 percent take home 24 percent of the national income.

- Nearly one in six people are in poverty in the U.S.

- As The American Independent reports, there were a record number of women in poverty in 2010.

- Since the recession began, the unemployment rate for young people has climbed as high as 52.2 percent.

- In the African-American community, the unemployment rate is the highest it has been in 27 years, at 16 percent.

- According to a report by The Washington Independent, the unemployed commit suicide at two or three times the average, and the rate goes up the longer they have been unemployed

- Defaults on student loans, especially at for-profit universities, have risen substantially. Fifteen percent of borrowers at for-profit colleges defaulted in the first two years of repayment, while 8.8 percent of borrowers over all defaulted in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

News the New Mexico Tourism Department laid off seven New Mexico Magazine employees Tuesday highlights the state as one of the many in the nation with a relatively fertile employment picture despite a decline in government jobs.

This past week, The Brookings Institution in its MetroMonitor report noted (PDF) Albuquerque as one of the top 20 metropolitan areas in economic performance, sharing the spotlight with Buffalo, Houston, Portland, Boston, San Jose and New Orleans, among others.

The report was compiled using metrics such as housing prices, average earnings, the unemployment rate, local gross domestic product and types of jobs available.

The job cuts in the Tourism Department weren’t limited to the legendary magazine, the first state-printed magazine in the country with a long history of publishing articles and photographs of prominent state-born figures; 27 workers were cut by the State Personnel Board, 11 of which were in tourism. Another 16 full-time positions were removed from payroll at Expo New Mexico, which puts on the State Fair and operates fairgrounds.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 6.6 percent; government positions have been on the decline for most of the past year, with preliminary August figures showing the number of positions matches 2003 levels. Manufacturing in the state has gained modestly in the past year, while education, health services, the financial sector, trade and utilities have led in job growth.

Santa Fe, despite being home to many government positions, has an unemployment rate below the state average at 5.7 percent according to July figures — the most recent the BLS has on file on the local level. Albuquerque, possessing most of the government jobs in the state has a July unemployment rate of 7.7 percent.

Beyond New Mexico, the authors wrote federal, local and state government jobs dropped off in 69 of the largest 100 metropolitan areas.

Below is a general synopsis from the report of the economic activity on the metropolitan level nationwide:

 Unemployment rates, although lower than at the beginning of 2010 in most large metropolitan areas, remained very high. House prices hit new lows in all large metropolitan areas even as the pace of foreclosures slowed in half of those areas. Workers’ earnings, available at the metropolitan level through the first quarter of 2011, fell in slightly more than half of the nation’s large metropolitan areas since the beginning of the recession. Manufacturing employment continued to rise through the second quarter of the year in most large metropolitan areas. Government employment continued to fall in most.

Nearly two years after the official end of the “Great Recession,” the labor market remains historically weak. Many commentators have attributed the ongoing weakness in part to supply-side effects driven by dramatic expansions of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefit durations, to as many as 99 weeks…

The various specifications yield quite similar results. UI extensions had significant but small negative effects on the probability that the eligible unemployed would exit unemployment, concentrated among the long-term unemployed. The estimates imply that UI benefit extensions raised the unemployment rate by only about 0.2–0.6 percentage points, much less than is implied by previous analyses. Half or more of this effect is due to reduced labor force exit among the unemployed rather than to the changes in reemployment rates that are of greater policy concern; some analyses even suggest that UI extensions, by keeping displaced workers in the labor market, may have increased the share who were later reemployed.

The Department of Labor’s figures say that there are at least four unemployed people for every one job opening. President Obama is seeking another extension of federal extended unemployment benefits, which are due to expire at the end of this year, but the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is likely to balk at that request.

Trip Jennings reports that Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, drafted a compromise bill on the state’s unemployment compensation fund, raising taxes on businesses by a lesser amount than Gov. Susana Martinez line-item vetoed earlier this year:

“I’m just trying to find a middle ground,” Smith said Wednesday. “I don’t know how much traction it will get.”

The Governor’s Office didn’t sound enthusiastic about Smith’s bill.

“The Governor does not believe politicians should arbitrarily increase tax rates on New Mexico businesses,” Martinez’s spokesman Scott Darnell said in an email. “The Governor is hopeful that a bi-partisan compromise can be reached that keeps taxes low on businesses during this recovery to help put more New Mexicans back to work and then bases contribution rates on economic conditions, such as the amount being paid out in benefits, the balance of the fund, and the unemployment rate.”

Martinez favors taking $130 million out of the state’s savings account over two years, but that proposal has faced resistance from lawmakers. The fund is expected to stay in the black until early 2013. The fund had $129 million as of early July, down from $500 million just three years ago. The state pays out $745,000 per day in benefits, and was paying $1 million per day earlier in the year.

Steve Terrell has the story:

In an affidavit filed in Chapman’s case, Deputy U.S. Marshal Dave Loyer wrote, “Since her state employment ended in February 2011, I learned from the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions that Defendant Chapman applied for unemployment benefits in February 2011, and has been receiving unemployment benefits weekly since March of 2011.”

After resigning as the facilities manager for the Corrections Department in May 2010, Chapman went to work for the state Indian Affairs Department, where she earned $63,124, a spokesman for Gov. Susana Martinez said after Chapman was indicted in April. She was fired from that post Feb. 23.

Normally, unemployment benefits don’t apply if you are fired for misconduct, or resign. The state’s unemployment compensation pays about $745,000 per day (down from $1 million) in benefits, and faces problems with solvency because of high unemployment. Shoring up the fund is on the agenda in the special session. But Chapman is one egregious example of someone who shouldn’t be drawing benefits.

According to government figures, zero net jobs were created in the U.S. last month — a situation that last happened in September 2010. This leaves the national unemployment rate steady at 9.1 percent.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to unveil measures aimed at bolstering growth in an address to Congress next Thursday, but the 2012 GOP candidates hammered the news peg with statements in advance.

Former governor of Utah and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman:

Two days after I offered a plan with serious solutions that would create jobs and get our economy going, we learn of yet another month with zero job growth. There is no clearer sign that the President has failed and the theatrics around his far-too-late jobs speech demonstrate that he has no real plan to change course. In a country with 307 million people, zero job growth is unfathomable. It’s time for America to compete again and it’s time for a new President.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney:

Today’s disappointing unemployment report is further proof that President Obama has failed. President Obama oversaw an economy that created zero jobs last month and that is unacceptable. In order to change the direction of this country, we need to change presidents. Americans need a conservative businessman to get this economy moving again, not career politicians. That is why I am running. Next week, I will lay out my specific plan to put America back to work.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum:

This morning’s jobs report is another sad sign that President Obama’s economic policies would need to improve dramatically to even be described as incompetent. For three years, in speech after speech, the President has claimed to be focused on the American worker, but month after month and report after report shows the opposite. So either, the President’s economic policies are killing this economy or his lack of leadership – either way, President Obama is to blame. Employers need certainty and freedom to expand and that what my jobs plan would do.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann:

Mr. President – we gave you $2.4 trillion in new spending and the American people got nothing in return. Today’s jobs report showing that the economy created no jobs in the last month and unemployment at 9.1 percent is further evidence that President Obama’s failed economic policies are not working and have completely stalled job growth. After spending three days last month on a bus tour focusing on jobs – today’s economic report shows that the nation’s economy is sitting at a huge stop sign. Before his vacation, the President gave us a speech about a jobs speech; the American people don’t need speeches, they need jobs.

It’s time for a comprehensive restructuring of how Washington spends taxpayers’ dollars by controlling spending and encouraging pro-growth economic policies. Mr. President – it’s time to stop digging our country further into debt – it’s time to build a solid foundation for sustainable economic growth to restore certainty for the American people and the markets.

U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter:

This latest jobs report again proves that, unlike President Obama and the GOP candidates who are unable or unwilling to understand the central problem in our economy, my economic growth plan is the one that will end this period of debt-deflation and stagnation by fundamentally restructuring Big Government into Citizen-government and recapitalizing the failed Wall Street Bailout Banks through free market forces.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson:

With today’s jobs report, the worst in a year, one has to wonder what it will take to make the President and Congress admit that they are doing all the wrong things. Government does not create jobs, it kills jobs. Yet, the White House says the answer is to pass a highway bill so they can ‘stimulate’ construction jobs. Washington has stimulated us to death, and it has to stop. Provide certainty for employers, stop the insane spending, and reform the tax code. Do those things, and the private sector will do the job creation. We have let the myth of government jobs programs go too far, and America is suffering as a result. We don’t need more prime time speeches — we need government to just get out of the way.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

President Obama’s job-killing polices continue to wreak havoc on the American economy. The poor national jobs picture stands in stark contrast to Texas’ pro-jobs, limited government policies which helped make us the top job-producing state in the nation. Our country cannot afford four more years of economic misery, and I will continue to travel the county talking about ways to get American working again.

Atlanta businessman Herman Cain:

We learned today that not a single job was created during the month of August in the United States of America. In the land of endless opportunity and abundant freedom, the very promise that has inspired generations of industrious and innovative people seems to be dwindling away.

After trillions in government spending and empty promises, 14 million American workers are unemployed, with millions more underemployed. These are people, not statistics. They are families struggling to put food on the table, send their kids to school and keep the lights on. They are our family members, friends and neighbors.

Sadly, the fact that zero jobs were created last month is only fitting for this administration, which is led by a President with zero leadership, zero plans, zero results and zero understanding of basic economics. And the American people are worse off because of it.

Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton on behalf of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul:

The August national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent is another unfortunate chapter in the Obama administration’s almost superhuman mishandling of the economy. Total nonfarm employment was unchanged, with zero jobs created. The number of involuntary part-time workers is up, and the number of those marginally attached to the workforce is up.

Six million workers, 42.9 percent of total unemployed persons, have been jobless 27 weeks or longer – a frightening proposition considering that mortgage, rent, food and back-to-school bills may go unpaid. The most recent four-week moving average of new unemployment claims, favored for being a less volatile indicator of our jobs picture, is a frowning 410,250 – also cause for dismay.

Indeed, much more than these data hangs in the balance. Americans are enduring painful long-term joblessness. They’re witnessing their savings disappear due to lost income. They’re seeing their personal debt rise due to lost income. And they gaze despairingly upon their retirement plans as these arrangements are tabled or upended entirely.

We’ve been told our economic situation would get worse before it gets better, yet circumstances have remained near to their utmost worst for nearly three years.

We’ve been told that help was on the way, yet taxpayer-derived aid was granted to pet causes and favored political allies. Too often, bailouts were targeted to the President’s corporate and financial sector allies, a policy similar to that of tossing life preservers to those partying on yachts.

Americans have had enough.

It’s high time that the President and his Washington establishment allies – those in both parties – ‘man up’ and face the responsibility to enact authentic change.

First, America must put an end to the unconstitutional, undeclared wars that are nothing more than destructive conflicts having an unclear connection to U.S. national security. And we should stop putting our war-weary armed services men and women in danger by being the world’s police force and dispense with state building while there are pressing needs at home.

“Ron Paul has called for an authentic stimulus that communities across America will find economically and affectionately stimulating: the return to America of 305,000 of their sons, daughters, husbands and wives who are deployed overseas.

Dr. Paul says time and again that these men and women’s absence from the U.S., their deployments by international organizations such as N.A.T.O. and the United Nations, and their involvement in unconstitutional, undeclared wars puts America at risk.

America’s heroes should finally return, reunite with their loved ones in the vicinity of U.S. bases – many of which face closure, as foreign bases thrive – and they can spend, save or invest their pay right here in America.

A return to the U.S. of service men and women and their equipment just months ago would mean that Vermont would have possessed the needed Blackhawk helicopters and personnel to adequately respond to Hurricane Irene’s destruction. Instead, Vermont was required to borrow helicopters from Illinois and New Hampshire.

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, there’s a national conversation about the constitutionality, efficacy and efficiency of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) happening. Yet, none of Ron Paul’s Republican primary competitors have raised the issue that, since the U.S. reportedly spends more than $500 billion on overseas adventures, just seven days’ worth of U.S global militarism would pay for Hurricane Irene response.

Second, President Obama and his Washington enablers of both parties must end the appalling practice of overspending and borrowing. American households are becoming poorer as the economic doldrums continue, however Washington enjoys a kind of golden age as it grows and promotes its relevance in every facet of life.

The Obama administration offers empty promises on a jobs fix despite the economic reality that government does not create jobs, and in lockstep those in government garner little criticism as few in the media hold Washingtonians’ feet to the fire. This selective examination of the facts, too, must end.

Third, the U.S. must avoid the disastrous boom and bust cycles that promote irresponsible spending, investing, borrowing and lending and this can only be done by returning to a sound money system.

The Federal Reserve should undergo a complete and thorough audit, and currency competition should be introduced by decriminalizing the use of gold and silver as legal tender. The final aim would be to end the Fed, which rewards the wealthy few while punishing and injuring working class Americans.

The numbers and anecdotal evidence of a failed jobs picture speak for themselves. They are a glaring argument for abandoning the failed Big Government, discredited Keynesian response to the national crisis all but those in Washington are experiencing.

We do not need another speech or prime-time lecture for that matter to tell us what we know: Washington has failed and it is time for new leadership.

Ron Paul has championed the same constitutionally-limited government, noninterventionist foreign policy and sound money arguments for more than 30 years.

Dr. Paul wisely predicted the economic crisis and foresaw that it would fall hardest on the hardworking and most vulnerable. The issues now match the candidate, which is why his message is resonating with more voters as the primary campaign cycle advances.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its August jobs report Friday morning, finding that a small increase in private-sector employment of 17,000 jobs was exactly offset by a loss of 17,000 public-sector jobs. Unemployment remains unchanged at 9.1 percent.

However, the U-6 measure — including involuntary part-time workers, marginally attached workers and discouraged workers — is unchanged at 16.2 percent. This is the first jobs report with a net job change of zero since February 1945.

However, the jobs report did include the strike of 45,000 Verizon workers who have since come back to the job — still, 45,000 jobs created is anemic growth since the BLS estimates that it takes about 125,000 jobs per month to keep up with population growth alone. Since September 2008, 550,000 local government jobs have been lost.

Modest June and July job gains were revised downward as well, from 46,000 to 20,000 in June and 117,000 to 85,000 in July. Wages declined by three cents from July to $23.09 per hour, and are up 1.9 percent from a year ago. Hours edged down by one basis point to 34.2 hours per week.

The bottom line? Job growth remains net negative with population growth, and is nowhere near enough to reduce the unemployment rate.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report for July Friday morning, finding that 117,000 new jobs were created and the unemployment rate dropped very slightly from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent. However, more people left the labor force than jobs were created.

The private sector added 154,000 new jobs. Government jobs declined by 37,000, showing that state and local governments are still shedding jobs because of lower revenues and as funds from the Recovery Act dry up. However, 23,000 of those job losses were due to the Minnesota government shutdown last month. It takes about 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth, according to the BLS — meaning that even job gains like this are simply not enough to make a dent in the unemployment rate.

However, the employment-population ratio — the number of working-age people who are employed — fell to 58.1 percent, its lowest number since 1983. Such a low number means that many people are still discouraged and have dropped out out of the labor force. The U-6 measure — a broader measure of unemployment including involuntary part-time workers and discouraged workers — remains at just over 16 percent.

The U.S. has regained about 1.8 million of the 8.7 million jobs lost during the recession, according to Bloomberg; adding 117,000 in a month is nowhere near enough to return to a natural unemployment rate of five percent.

New Mexico lost 30,600 non-farm jobs from June 2006 to June 2011, placing it 22nd out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in job numbers, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, there was overall job growth in three of the past five years. New Mexico had 804,700 jobs as of June 2011, losing 3.66 percent of jobs in the past five years.

Bizjournals.com aggregated all of the state-level statistics, and Texas had the best job growth over the past five years, gaining 537,500 jobs or 5.35 percent, over five years.

The next largest total increase was in Louisiana, adding 55,900 jobs over five years. Nine states and the District of Columbia gained jobs.

California lost the most jobs, just over one million, of any state. Percentage-wise, North Dakota posted an 11.84 percent increase in jobs with no years of overall job loss, while Nevada lost 13.16 percent of jobs, with just one year of overall job growth.